Wednesday, December 13, 2017

GIDGET: Blu-ray (Columbia 1959) Twilight Time

“If you’re in doubt about angels being real…” Oops – sorry.
Wrong Gidget. Or rather, right Gidget…the mother of all Gidgets, in fact. Widely regarded as
the movie to have kicked off the ‘beach
blanket’ badinage that would later follow it, not to mention the legitimate
Gidget sequels and short-lived TV
series starring Sally Fields, director Paul Wendkos’ Gidget(1959) is fluffy, good-natured, wholesome fun; the
quintessential ‘coming of age’/teen
romance drive-in flick for which ‘the
sound of youth’ (later, spoofed in Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii, 1961) was invented. Based on author, Frederick
Kohner’s series of novels, begun with 1957’s Gidget: The Little Girl with Big Ideas, Gidget, the movie is a sun-kissed frolic that today, very much
warms our hearts as a quaint reminder of the way things used to be. It’s the ‘oh by gosh and golly’ magic of it all
that remains so…well, ‘gosh darn’
invigorating nearly 60 years later. 60
years?!?! Kowabunga, dude. Where has the time gone? This latter reference
is, of course, a nod to the picture’s surf-themed misadventures of our Gidg’;
surfing then, an alien experience, tinged with an air of exoticism for anyone
not of the Californian or Hawaiian persuasion. The term ‘gidget’ is actually an abbreviation for ‘girl midget’ that today’s political correctness would likely
lengthen to “g’little people”.
Whatever.

For anyone
growing up in the early 1970’s, my opening reference will remind them, either
fondly or ‘un’, of mid-summer television reruns from that other short-lived
series starring Sally Fields, its bouncy tune, ‘Wait’ll You See My Gidget’ penned by Messer’s Howard Greenfield and
Jack Keller, rather fetchingly warbled (after the pilot episode) by Johnny
Tillotson (sounding uncannily like Bobby Rydell). This movie has another, as
catchy title tune written by Patti Washington and Fred Karger, harmonized by
The Four Preps, and later, reprised as a partial love ballad sung by the
movie’s co-star, James Darren, who acquits himself rather nicely of the more
upbeat, ‘The Next Best Thing to Love’
– serenading our star, Sandra Dee with lyrics by Stanley Styne, perfectly
married to another set of neatly arranged notes composed by Karger. The
outstanding ‘musical’ highlight of the picture remains ‘Cinderella’ – sung by The Four Preps (a California quartet
sounding – and dressing – very much like The Beach Boys), performing their
smash single, made exclusively possible through a licensing agreement with
Capitol Records.

Formed, as a
good many ‘boy bands’ were back then,
not by overly-processed/prepackaged hype, but a chance meeting between four
high school buddies, fairly to knock the socks off a Capitol Records scout at
their 1956 Hollywood High talent show; from then on, the boys were off and
running with no less than 13 chart-grabbing hits – the mega-million seller 26 Miles, earning them a gold record.
As with most groups swamped by the mid-60’s British invasion of pop singers, in
the wake of the tsunami known as The Beatles’, the Preps’ popularity went into
steep decline. After several changes, they officially disbanded in 1969. Yet, one
has to sincerely admire the fifties for its wide-eyed optimism, typified by
groups like The Four Preps and movies like Gidget.
In a decade overrun by changing tastes, oft taken to cliché in the socially-repressed
Eisenhower era (America’s heavily distilled impressions of itself, both as a
world super power and buttoned down ultra-conservative nation of do-gooders,
riding the crest of their newfound post-WWII economic prosperity), the allure
of that mythology, in suggesting nothing bad could or would ever happen ‘from sea to shining sea’ was just too
good to be true or indefinitely last. It also appears deceptively ‘normal’ for
the fifties. But the engineering gone into such a lithe and optimistic flick like
Gidgetis – at least today – less of
a foregone and effortless conclusion than the exemplar of carefully
orchestrated Sport n’ Shave Ken-dolls meet Suzie-Cream-Cheeses from the suburbs:
a propaganda puff piece, shamelessly meant to promote an American ideal that
never actually existed, as universally accepted and culturally – ‘the norm’ (as our Gidg’ puts it) in ‘total awesomeness’. It’s just plain
silly to fight it. The fifties were fabulous…for some.

Gidget made a household name of Sandra Dee (born, Alexandra
Ruck of Russian-Orthodox faith). Depending on the source consulted, Dee’s
meteoric rise is ascribed to producer, Ross Hunter. Long before she was cast in
his glossy remake of Imitation of Life
(1959), Dee had been the reigning gamin of New York fashion; earning an
impressive $75,000 annually as a model at the age of twelve. She also suffered
from a horrendous crash diet to maintain her lithesome, flat-chested frame; her
slavish devotion almost costing Dee her life. At one point, Dee’s anorexia made
her unable to properly digest food. She had to learn how to eat all over again.
Better things were in store, however. In 1957, the same year Kohner published
his first Gidget novel, Dee made the
transition to Hollywood, appearing in Robert Wise’s Until They Sail. Her looks and talent, touted by gossip maven
Louella Parsons as the new Shirley Temple, quickly earned Dee the right to be
cast as the lead in Vincente Minnelli’s frothy comedy of errors, The Reluctant Debutante (1958). Signing
a multi-picture deal with Universal gave the studio the option to loan her out
for several pictures, including Gidget (produced
at Columbia). Immediately following Gidget’s
box office success the studio would have liked nothing better than to include
Dee in a pair of sequels. Regrettably – at least for Columbia, Universal had
more prescient plans; Dee appearing in two more loan outs, including the iconic
‘A Summer Place’ over at Warner
Bros. (all three made and released in 1959); Dee earning the respect of her
peers and a rank as the 16th most popular star in the land. By 1960
it would jump to #7!

Stardom alas,
and more often than not, is a very double-edged sword, and after Dee’s frenzied
marriage to hip-swiveling pop sensation, Bobby Darin (the two were wed in 1960
and divorced barely 7 years later), she steadily retreated from the spotlight,
appearing sporadically in movies and on television, succumbing to bouts of
alcoholism, depression and chronically plagued by anorexia. When Darin
tragically died at the age of 37 in 1973, Dee elected to retire from the
national consciousness; briefly revived in lyrics to a song from the movie, Grease (1978). Describing herself as “a has been who never was”, Dee would
live long enough to know the indignation of seemingly being forgotten, her
death at the age of 62 in 2005 brought on by complications from kidney disease.
It’s hard, if not impossible to reconcile this image of the ‘washed up’ celeb with that goody-goody
wallflower Dee presents to us in Gidget
as Francie Lawrence; the apple of her parents’ eye - the ever-understanding
Dorothy (Mary LaRoche) and easily flustered, Russell (Arthur O’Connell). Dee is
such an innocent here, decidedly wet behind the ears in the ways of amour (with
the right boy, of course!) and just not able to wrap her head around the art of
‘man-chasing’. Remember, it is 1959. The best any girl can hope for
is a man who will ‘take care of her’
(a phrase of varied interpretations).

Yet, how can our
Gidg’ be sure it’s the right man? Mercifully, Gabrielle Upton’s screenplay
gives Francie some options…well alright – two; the much older, Kahuna (a.k.a.
Burt Vail, and played with affecting sweetness and charm by Cliff Robertson)
and ‘Moondoggie’ (a.k.a. Jeffrey Matthews, less effectively realized by James
Darren – physically, a knock-off of John Aston, with whom Dee had great
chemistry in the aforementioned Minnelli picture). Alas, Dee and Darren never
quite hit it off for at least two-thirds of this movie; his myopic exultation
of Kahuna’s devil-may-care ‘beach bum’ lifestyle (that Jeff will unsuccessfully
seek to emulate – if only for this one eventful summer) and Jeff’s equally as
narrow-minded view Gidget is ‘a child’ rather than a girl of his temperament
teetering on the cusp of womanhood, leaves our projected lovers at
cross-purposes for far too long. It also leaves Gidget feeling frazzled. Today,
we’d call it ‘sexual frustration’. One of the most winsome aspects of the
picture is Dee’s potential to clear-cut through all the male preening going on
around her. Thirty minutes into Gidget,
Dee’s tomboy already knows Moondoggie is the only fellow for her. It will take
him until seven minutes before the final fade out to come to a similar
epiphany. Somewhere between truth and romance we get humorous vignettes devoted
either to homespun mother/daughter advice or some truly laughable blue-screen
inserts of our tomboyish Gidg’ assimilating as ‘just one of the boys’ as she takes up and masters the leisurely
‘all-male’ pursuit of surfing.

Miraculously,
it’s her pert and pint-sized self-reflection that proves the catalyst for so
much change; Kahuna, protective of his charge – old enough to drive daddy’s Caddy but hopelessly lacking the social wherewithal to acknowledge an obvious –
and even more unwanted, pass made by another member of the troop - ‘Lover Boy’
(Tom Laughlin). Gidget may not know her way around raging hormones, but she
certainly has her way with these guys. Kahuna’s boys begin by reluctantly
acknowledging her presence as a minor nuisance; then, as their mascot, and finally,
as the right girl at the right time, primed for the picking – if only harvest
time did not involve so many anxious farmhands in search of this one
vine-ripened tomato. I have read several feminist treatises, citing Gidget as a catalyst for the dawning of
a new cinematic representation of the all-American woman. Oh, please…let’s not go overboard! Dee’s bright-eyed and book-read
babe in the woods is refreshingly not ‘with
it’. Were that she could figure out the machinations to mimic her
enterprising cohorts I have no doubt she would succumb and succeed in turning
on the facet and the charm in tandem to achieve that holiest of holy ‘primal
objectives’ for the fifties female: to land a quality hunk of man-flesh. That Gidg’
goes about it all wrong, or rather backwards and sideways (and still manages to
hook the biggest catch of the day) is undeniably the crux of this movie’s
time-capsule/fairy tale lure; also, its’ foregone conclusion.

After a bouncy
main title, we settle in on a day in the life of our Frances Lawrence; a
close-up of a decidedly juvenile one-piece bathing suit drying on the clothes
line, dissolving to a shot of Frances, all of seventeen and lamenting to a
crop-haired Betty Louis (Sue George) she is quite hopeless when it comes to
attracting the opposite sex. Frances’ gal pals, Mary Lou (Jo Morrow), Nan (Yvonne
Craig) and Patti (Patti Kane) all want to troll the beaches for available
red-blooded men. Alas, Frances has yet to feel the hormonal twinge. Despite her
father’s best-laid plans to inveigle Frances with Jeffrey Matthews, the son of
a business associate, she has other ideas about how best to spend her summer
holidays. Arriving at the beach, the
girls are immediately attracted to a group of shirtless, tanned fellas lying
around a makeshift hut, waxing their surfboards. But even their more obvious
effects fail to catch on. Nevertheless, Frances meets Kahuna and Moondoggie,
becoming fascinated by the surfboard. Frances begs Russell to loan her $25 for
a used board. Contented their daughter’s interests are aligned with ‘some nice
boys’ she has met at the beach, Dorothy convinces Russ to let his little girl
have the money.

While Kahuna and
the other fellas are impressed by Frances’ resolve to partake of their
male-dominated past time, Moondoggie finds virtually nothing redeemable about Gidg’.
The boys unofficially take Frances for their mascot and nickname her ‘Gidget’,
a portmanteau word derived from 'girl' and
'midget'. Unable to see this as a
playful putdown, Gidget believes she has made inroads to a likely détente with
Moondoggie. Briefly, Gidget becomes enamored with Kahuna; a Korean War vet
twice her the age who has since written off the rules of what society expects
of him to become a full-time beach bum. Moondoggie admires Kahuna so much he
has decided to delay his own college plans in the fall to accompany his mentor
on a freighter bound for Peru at summer’s end. Of all the boys, Kahuna genuinely enjoys Gidget’s
company. Without prying into his affairs, she sincerely questions whether if he
knew then what he knows now he would still make the same lifestyle choices…uh…mistakes.
It takes some time for those words to sink in, but sometime later, Kahuna takes
Gidget’s philosophy to heart, electing to rejoin the human race by getting a
real job and hang up his wanderer’s shoes.

Meanwhile,
desperate to fit in with the guys – and one in particular – Frances lies to
everyone about securing some premium steaks and refreshments for the planned
‘end of summer’ luau. Gidget’s rise to prominence as a ‘surfer girl’ is also
delayed when, after being initiated by the fellas, repeatedly dunked in a tangle
of kelp, she nearly drowns, developing an acute case of tonsillitis that leaves
her bedridden for weeks. Not one to waste any time, Gidg’ practices her surfing
technique by balancing her board across her bed. Fully recuperated, she takes
to the waves with the boys, impressing even Kahuna and Moondoggie with her
impeccable balance. At every attempt to catch Moondoggie’s eye, Gidget’s plans
turn either sour or moot. Moondoggie isn’t interested in her. Everyone – even
Kahuna – can see that. So Gidget hires one of the other surfers to play the
part of her date for the luau. Too bad this plan backfires when the date passes
off his sworn duty on Moondoggie, who still has no idea he is the object of
Gidget’s affections. Lying to Moondoggie she is out to impress Kahuna instead, Moondoggie
and Gidg’ remain at odds until he implies she is just a child, much too young
to be interested in a man of Kahuna’s years. Storming off in her convertible,
Gidget pursues Kahuna to a nearby ‘love shack’ he has borrowed for the evening
from a friend.

Meanwhile,
having discovered their daughter’s stormy alliance may not play out in Gidget’s
best interests, Dorothy and Russell elect to go see exactly what is happening
down at the beach. They arrive too late to find Gidget but are informed by
another surfer of the ‘love shack’ and Gidget’s departure to chase after
Kahuna. Well ahead of the game, Gidget arrives at the love shack and valiantly
pitches herself to be ‘taken advantage
of’ without actually knowing what this means. Kahuna is willing to
oblige…up to a point. But even he can see Gidget does not really mean what she
is saying. As a noble gesture, he sends her away. Too bad a nosy neighbor (Cheerio
Meredith) has been all too eager to telephone the police. Now, Moondoggie turns
up, demanding to know from Kahuna what has transpired at the shack. Before he
can answer for his actions (or lack thereof), Kahuna and Moondoggie get into a
brawl. The police break things up. Next, they find Gidget standing by her car
down the road. She has suffered a flat tire. Unable to show proof of her
license or registration for the family car, Gidget is taken by the officers to
the station house. She is humiliated to find Dorothy and Russell already there,
desperate for information on her whereabouts. Russell makes both the police and
his family a promise: nothing like this will ever happen again. Dorothy reminds
her daughter of grandma’s old saying, “A
good woman brings out the best in every man.”

In an attempt to
realign his daughter’s discernment between nice guys and bums, the next day
Russell arranges for Gidget to meet Jeffrey Matthews, the son of his business
associate. Both she and Jeff are startled to realize they already know each
other much too well. You see, Jeff is
Moondoggie! Not wanting to upset her parents any further, Gidget agrees to go
on a date with him. Despite her linger affections for Jeff, almost immediately
the two begin to quarrel as he drives back to the beach for, as he puts it, ‘one last (nostalgic) look around the place’.
The couple discover Kahuna dismantling his makeshift beach shack. Ironically, he
too has decided being a beach bum is no way to live. Having accepted a job as a
flyer for a local airline, Kahuna and Moondoggie part as friends. Gidget and
Moondoggie embrace. He offers her his fraternity pin – the ultimate fifties
pledge of long-distance fidelity - while he is away at school. Gidget is over
the moon with joy. Her dreams have come true – at least, for the time being.

Gidgettakes some time to get going, but once it does its
spirit of youthful optimism is as irresistible as ever. Watching Dee’s
book-read but clumsy young Miss put herself through the grueling paces of an
intellectualized determination to solve a problem where the heart should be
leading the way instead, performing ‘breast-enhancement’ exercises in the hopes
of amplifying her cleavage before the luau, leaves a palpable sincerity to
linger about the hopefulness as well
as the helplessness of young people
desperate to become adults. But ‘mama’ was right. Being young is the best part of life, filled with new
discoveries about one’s self, friendship and love affairs meant to last a
lifetime – if only as lingering memories, neatly tucked into the faded pages of
a yearbook or old Christmas card. I’ll admit this much; with its summer-themed
festivities, releasing a Blu-ray of Gidget
just before the pending Christmas holidays seems rather idiotic, or just poor
timing to capitalize on its oodles of charm. Whatever the season, Gidget’s passion for life proves the
magic elixir to warm our hearts. Sandra Dee was not a great actress. She was,
however, a fairly fetching presence on the screen, able to be genuine and play
solid comedy. Herein she illustrates not only the potential, but the
emotional/mental resources to have achieved far better in a career cut short by
inner demons and the inevitable sad decline of her screen popularity by the
late 1960’s as she too grew into womanhood, leaving naiveté, along with those
school girl days far behind.

In Columbia’s
subsequent sequels, Gidget Goes Hawaiian
(1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome
(1963), a more mature Gidg’ would be fleshed out by Deborah Walley and Cindy
Carol respectively – neither able to recreate Sandra Dee’s bushy-tailed buoyancy.
Gidget may not be high art, but it
hardly matters. It is a movie to remind of a simpler time in that fictionally
woven tapestry of Americana; when to be a virgin was hardly taboo, young love
did not necessarily equate to leaving your knickers in a ball on the backseat
of someone else’s car, and the prospect of finding true love the first time
around – even while in high school, contained a sincere promise made through
due diligence to find happiness on one’s own terms; free love, diaphragms, STD’s,
and, the pill be damned! We don’t make movies like Gidget today, not even as retro-fitted homage, mainly because our
present age has vulgarized the fragility of youth all out of proportion. In
music, movies, TV programs and ads promoting hyper-sexualization as ‘the cultural norm’; we live in a pop
culture where if you haven’t lost your virginity by sixteen and traded up a
partner or two in the interim you might just as well consider yourself washed
up. The movies have since confused finding love with getting laid, or rather,
made it appear as though the latter is the only gateway to discovering the
former. Refreshingly, our Gidget feels the same way – although, she equates ‘making it with a boy’ to friendly
hand-holding, a tender kiss on the lips, and storybook daydreams of marrying to
start a family. So, the end game really has not changed since 1959.
Regrettably, the approach has. So, to paraphrase: “If you’re still in doubt about angels being real. I can arrange to
change any doubts you feel. Wait'll you see this Gidget… you'll want her for your Valentine. You're gonna say she's
all that you adore. Step right this way. Our Gidg’ is spoken for. You're gonna find, this Gidgetis simply divine!”

Gidget arrives on Blu-ray via Twilight Time. Basically, another
quality release from Sony, cribbing from restored and remastered elements in
their archive a la Grover Crisp and his minions, who implicitly understand only
one route to deep catalog releases from their Columbia Studios’ archives: polished
with class and dedication to every last detail. We readily applaud Mr. Crisp
and Sony on this blog. Once again, the kudos and accolades are well worth it. Gidgetwas shot in Cinemascope and
ColumbiaColor – the studio-sanctioned derivation of Eastmancolor. Neither is a
great process; ‘scope’s peripheral warping of the image wed to muddier than
anticipated hues of this monopack color negative. The image can hardly hold a
candle to Technicolor or Technirama. Less expensive though, folks; and, in the
cost-cutting fifties, keeping the budget in check oft’ meant more than maintaining
an overall integrity to any print master for generations that…let’s face it…
were still three decades removed from the home video revolution. Movies then,
as movies now, were made as disposable mass market entertainment. Unlike now
however, then, conservation/preservation (even basic longevity of the product
itself) was not considered a priority. Once a movie had its first run
theatrically it was rarely shown in its entirety – perhaps, on late night TV,
or unless it proved a blockbuster rife for multiple reissues.

Gidget in 1080p looks very nice indeed. There is some marginal
fading and the image can occasionally look thick rather than refined. But this
is Cinemascope and Eastmancolor, folks; not the fault of this meticulous
remastering effort. Age-related artifacts have been completely eradicated. There’s
a patina of naturally realized film grain too. Honestly, nothing to complain
about here. The DTS audio is 1.0 mono. I am uncertain if Gidgetwas originally recorded in 4 or 6 track-stereo. Certainly, ‘scope’ was capable of stereo, though a
good many original sound mixes were gassed and reused back in the day, leaving
only mono mixes behind. Oh well, and again, it is what it is – nicely balanced
with clean, crisp dialogue and no strident spots. We also get the score and
three songs in stereo, isolated on a separate track. We love Twilight Time for including
classic film scores as a supplement when rights permit, although I would
sincerely champion all future TT releases of musicals like Doctor Dolittle include not only orchestrations but also vocal
tracks. But I digress. Gidgetis a
charmer on Blu-ray. If you are still in
doubt about angels being real, get this one today and be very glad you did.
Bottom line: highly recommended!

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca